Sometimes, All You Can Do Is Pray

I'm at a point in my life that could best be described as an "in-between stage".

Single, living alone away from my family with a full time job. Yet I'm close enough to home that I go there once or twice a month and my mother still buys groceries for me... even though I don't ask her to.  I call that the "in-between stage". 

What else could I call it?

I don't quite have my own independent life as I see it. For all intensive purposes I do, still I call the home where my parents live my permanent address. Heck, I still get mail sent there (another reason to go home every once in a while). 

My immediate family is like everyone elses'... weird and not normal.  They are going through some major changes right now which I am not really a part of. I'm glad for that, because the changes are not easy nor are everyone happy with them. Change is always going to happen and all we as humans can really do is pray for help to get through the constancy of change. 

I've used my family as an excuse to move closer to home. Now that I'm home, I'm so glad to be back in Montana and that is not just because of my family. 

If I'm honest with myself, I don't want to leave Montana. That's not because I would be far away from my family again. I just enjoy living in Montana and I really don't want to go anywhere else. 

I'm praying for help and guidance for my family and also for some guidance for myself that will hopefully keep me here in Montana. 

I'm ready for whatever God has in store for me though. I can leave Montana but Montana will never leave me (how cliche is that!)

Peace all

Persistence and Patience

Recently I have started seriously archery hunting. The bow and arrows I am using I purchased almost 10 years ago. They have sat in my parents garage until last year. Getting them out a year ago is about all I did. I shot it a bit but did not do any hunting, mainly because I had a new job and did not have many places I knew of close by to go.

A year later a year smarter has allowed me to do some hunting. Whenever I am out I am so thankful to be able to do so, even though I have picked one of the most difficult quarry to get with a bow... the pronghorn antelope.

They don't call them speed goats for nothing. These critters are fast and spooky. Getting withing 100 yards of them is a feat in itself. They like the open country so it is almost impossible to stalk up to them. 

On Wednesday I did. I got to within 150 yards and then let them close the distance, which they did, but the big buck was at 70 yards and I did not feel comfortable at that range. They spooked and ran off.  I met them at the other end of the valley and had them within 100 yards as they crossed a creek.

Yesterday instead of chasing, I sat and waited. I knew about where they were going to go, but I did not know when. Well, after 4 hours of sitting and waiting they came. They went right were I thought they would. Problem was, they didn't stop. The herd sprinted past me, 20 yards away, and I never got a shot. I could smell their distinctive antelope smell as their breeze blew by me. There were some stragglers that started me. I almost got a shot off, but I arrow fell off my rest. 

Needless to say, I have learned a lot this week about archery hunting and antelope hunting. Hopefully my patience and persistence will pay off, but if not, that's cool too. The experiences and views have been worth it. 

Peace all

Can't Sleep

Maybe it is because I do not have bats flapping over my head or the sound of other guys snoring... whatever it is I cannot sleep. I woke up two hours ago and here I sit at 5 a.m.... blogging. 

I did not write much over the summer. Being a full time camp councilor did not allow me many chances to put my thoughts down in writing. Each new day held new challenges so there was not much point on dwelling on things.

One post I did write over the summer was commented on. That does not happen often. The funny thing for me is it almost makes me feel validated as a Catholic blogger. The commenter is what I like to call a "Rad-Trad" or a radical-traditionalist who hates the Second Vatican Council and how it changed the Church. It's quite interesting what she posted, or most likely copied and pasted off of a website. 

Anyway... Vatican II was not the problem, it was the implementation and down right horrible understanding of Vatican II that has lead to so many problems in our Church. Almost all the bishops in the world could not be heretics. Their thoughts were great but their follow through was abysmal. 

Any-who... my summer is over.  It was a great summer and I feel blessed beyond belief for the friends that I made this summer and the youth that I got to interact with. 

Now for a new year of new and exciting changes and challenges!

Peace all!

Beautiful Wedding

The wedding of two people who are committed to ministry and God is an amazing ceremony to witness.
Unfortunately it is too rare today that couples have their first focus on God. I know that my two friends who just got married were questioned all along the way.
Moving to the same town most would think it would be normal for them to live together. They chose not to. A simple gesture like that shows how truly committed they are to each other but most in our society do not see it that way.
Father mentioned that for both of them their greatest goal now is to get their spouse to heaven. How often is that mentioned at other wedding ceremonies these days?
The greatest thing I took away from the ceremony was hope.
There is hope for the future as long as we have faith-filled couples like Jake and Tiff in our world.

We Need a Healthy Distrust of Our Spiritual Emotions

One of the best nuggets of spiritual guidance I've gotten this summer is that God does not care about our emotions and we should have a healthy distrust of those emotions, especially spiritually.
This makes a lot of sense to me, as over the years I have let my emotions lead me, especially emotions that I experienced during spiritual moments. I can honestly say that most of those did not turn out well.
As Christians, life shouldn't be easy or comfortable. As father said today, life with a healthy relationship with God will be better, not easier, and those are two very different words and very different lives. Our emotions, or at least mine, often lead to selfish desires and those emotions have really clouded my vision of Christ in the past.
Just a nugget I wanted to get down.

Peace all

Adaptability and Harmony

As part of our training week for the upcoming summer camp all the councilors did this thing called strength finders. Basically we took this test and it told us our top five strengths, according to this test.
Two of my top three are adaptability and harmony.
For the most part I agree with my top five, but it's these two that drive me crazy!
Basically, when I read these I think "wow, I'm a hippy"... since I'm all about going with the flow and peace and harmony and all that jazz.
The funny thing about all of this was our priests response to the whole thing. We could tell he was not into it from the start. By the end if you wanted to hear a good rant all you had to do was bring up strength finders around him.
Father had a good point though. It's great to know what are strengths are, but as those who have read at least some of the Bible know, God likes to work through people's weaknesses.
Moses, huge amount of stage fright apparently, God still had him be the leader of his people.
Peter, definitely not the most faithful or upstanding of Jesus' followers, but he was named the rock.
God works through our weaknesses and thankfully I have many of them.

Peace all

Marriage Cannot Be Redefined

"every child comes from a man and a woman, and has a right, a natural human right, to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, their own mother and father.”

“Love is the answer. But love in the truth. The truth is that every child comes from a mother and a father, and to deliberate(ly) deprive a child of knowing and being loved by his or her mother and father is an outright injustice. That is our very nature, and no law can change it.”

~  Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco speaking at the “March for Marriage” on June 19, 2014 as quoted in Archbishop Cordileone calls for a 'civilization of truth and love' on Catholic News Agency.